Amanda Feery

Amanda Feery is a composer working with acoustic, electronic, and improvised music, having written for chamber and vocal ensembles, film, opera, theatre, and multimedia. After graduatingfrom Trinity College Dublin with a degree in Music in 2006, she continued her studies in Music and Media Technologies at Trinity College Dublin, completing an M.Phil in 2009. Amanda was the Mark Nelson Fellow in Music at Princeton University, completing her PhD in Music Composition in 2019. Her research focused on Kate Bushs song suite, The Ninth Wave . Whilst in the U.S., she formed collaborative relationships with several ensembles and musicians including Alarm Will Sound, Third Coast Percussion, Ensemble Mise-en, Bearthoven, Quince Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, and cellist Amanda Gookin. Closer to home, past collaborators include Crash Ensemble, ConTempo Quartet, the National Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Choir Ireland, This is How We Fly,Dublin Guitar Quartet, Paul Roe, Michelle O Rourke, and Lina Andonovska.Her work has been featured at New Music Dublin, First Fortnight Festival, Gleo Festival, and Dublin Fringe Festival, among others, and she has been composer-in-residence at Bang on a Can Summer Festival, SOUNDscape, and Greywood Arts. Her 2019 residency at Centre Culturel Irlandais focused on recording piano improvisations on Public - No restriction pianos in Paris.Recent projects include A Thing I Cannot Name , an opera film commissioned by Irish National Opera with a libretto by Megan Nolan, and My Year of Rest and Relaxation , commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra. Future projects include In an Occupied Zone, a work for solo cello at Music for Galways Cellissimo festival, and a new work for the Black Page Orchestra and Virtual Singer, commissioned by Music Current Festival. Amanda was the 2023 recipient of the Markievicz Award for Music. The funding from this award will seethe completion of Romantic Ireland , a radio work in response to Éamon de Valeras speech, `On Language and the Irish Nation with libretto by Eimear Walshe. A section of this piece will be part of Eimear Walshes installation at the Venice Art Biennale 2024.

Acoustic Composition; Electro-Acoustic Composition; Film Music; Opera; Polystylism; Improvisation; Synthesis

My Teaching PhilosophyMy teaching objectives are centred on each student being attuned to the process of composition, not solely the product. This involves a student discovering their own voice and aesthetic, but I also aim to develop their understanding that creativity is a developing process. It involves peaks and troughs, with different definitions and ways in which a work demonstrates originality that is not exclusively related to the notion of innovation. I strive for a learning experience that respects the intuitions of each student, encouraging them to think about their artistic endeavors, to give significance to their life experiences and their preferences in music, art, technology, etc. My course design allows for the acquisition of an ever-widening musical knowledge, a diverse set of tools and techniques to serve personal expression and to solve some of the rational problems of day-to-day composing. I see the classroom as a learning community of creators, which includes myself, and where we can each share in the evolution of our musical thinking, discoveries, influences, and progress. I am strongly committed to an inclusive pedagogy; a polystylistic approach that utilises strengths from a multitude of styles to create a working knowledge for students in how music can be put together. I promote the idea that music theory is descriptive, not prescriptive, and I consider students of different musical backgrounds a strength in the classroom.Teaching InterestsMusic Composition; Music Technology; Film Music; Scoring and Arranging;Opera; Music History; Women in Popular Music; Irish Traditional Music; Folk Song; Punk Music; Radio